Northamptonshire joins national campaign to fight for more money for our school children

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Published:10:48Tuesday 30 June 2015

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Pupils in Northamptonshire get less funding from the Government compared to nearly every other local authority in the country, according to the county council.

The council has launched a new campaign calling for the formula that divides money across local authorities to be reviewed.

In 2015/16, the council was allocated £4,293 per pupil. This compares to other areas such as Westminster, which was awarded £5,872 per pupil, and Brent, which received £5,357. Most neighbouring counties receive more money than Northamptonshire..

The county council says the current funding formula, which allocates different amounts of money to local education authorities per pupil, should be scrapped and a new national formula introduced to close the gap between the highest and lowest funded local authorities.

The council has now joined the campaign group f40, which represents the 40 lowest funded authorities in the country and is lobbying the Government for a reform of education funding.

County council cabinet member for learning, skills and education, Matthew Golby, said: “The existing funding model has no rationale and is clearly unfair. Children in Northamptonshire deserve the same standard of education as any other child, including those who live in affluent parts of London for example.

“A national funding formula allocating the same level of funding for all mainstream pupils across the country would resolve the problem of a child attracting very different levels of funding if they attend a school on one side of a local authority boundary rather than another.

“By signing up to the f40 group, we can lend our voice to the campaign for fairer funding and I will also be approaching all seven of Northamptonshire’s newly-elected MPs to encourage them to help raise the profile of funding for schools in our county.”

Ivan Ould, chairman of the f40 group, said: “I am extremely pleased that Northamptonshire has agreed to join our campaign and will be helping to fight for a fairer deal for the children in schools across the county and many other parts of England.

“The poorest funded authorities have a better chance of success if they band together to make the case for a better allocation formula and having Northamptonshire on board gives added momentum to our campaign.”